Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Below are brief
excerpts from seven different speeches by seven different candidates
over the past 25 or 30 years. All seven candidates were deemed “liberal”
or “progressive” by the corporate media and the malleable voting public.

Without using a
search engine, can any of you dedicated lefty types identify the
candidates or even tell these speeches apart? Could one of these
snippets actually be the words of your latest savior, Bernie Sanders?

Okay, Sandernistas, here we go!

1. “All of us
know what those challenges are today -- a war with no end, a dependence
on oil that threatens our future, schools where too many children aren't
learning, and families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working
as hard as they can. We know the challenges. We've heard them. We've
talked about them for years.”

2. “Dr. King
understood this, many years ago when he said the war in Vietnam was
destroying the people of two nations. We don’t have enough money to
build bridges in this country, yet we blow them up in Iraq. We don’t
have money to build schools in this country, but we have seen schools
and hospitals and other institutions destroyed in Iraq. We cannot take
care of matters here at home, and yet we have leaders who want to go all
around the world and tell people what to do. Let’s come back home.
Let’s take care of things here. Let’s have a country that we can be
proud of, with housing for all and jobs for all and education for all
and healthcare for all. That’s the kind of America that people will
love; the kind of America that will be an example to people all over the
world as a country that you believe in, a country that you want to see
succeed. Are we ready to take the path towards that kind of an America?”

3. “What's the
fundamental challenge of our day? It is to end economic violence. Most
poor people are not lazy. They're not black. They're not brown. They're
mostly white, and female and young. Most poor people are not on welfare.
I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work
every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They
clean the streets. They work every day. They change the beds you slept
in in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work
every day. They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the bodies
of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bedpans.
They clean out their commode. No job is beneath them, and yet when they
get sick, they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day. America,
that is not right. We are a better nation than that. We are a better
nation than that.”

4. “Today, we
stand here and say loudly and clearly that; ‘Enough is enough. This
great nation and its government belong to all of the people, and not to a
handful of billionaires, their Super-PACs and their lobbyists.’
Brothers and sisters: Now is not the time for thinking small. Now is not
the time for the same old – same old establishment politics and stale
inside-the-beltway ideas. Now is the time for millions of working
families to come together, to revitalize American democracy, to end the
collapse of the American middle class and to make certain that our
children and grandchildren are able to enjoy a quality of life that
brings them health, prosperity, security and joy -- and that once again
makes the United States the leader in the world in the fight for
economic and social justice, for environmental sanity and for a world of
peace.

5. “Our
democratic system has been the object of a hostile takeover, engineered
by a confederacy of corruption, careerism, and campaign consulting. And
money has been the lubricant greasing the deal.”

6. “Don’t tell
us unemployment is not a problem, when we see that African American
unemployment is now above 10 percent -- double the rate for whites. It
is unacceptable in the wealthiest nation on earth that we tolerate vast
and growing pockets of poverty -- from the hills of Appalachia to the
streets of Philadelphia. Making life better for the working poor is part
of my vision for a stronger America. We can do better… and we will.
Don’t tell us crumbling and overcrowded schools and underpaid teachers
are the best we can do. We have the means to give all our children a
first-rate education. We can do better… and we will. Don’t tell us we
have to accept racial profiling, hate crimes, or the assault by right
wing judges on our precious civil rights progress. We can do better and
we will.”

7. “For millions
and millions of Americans, the dream with which I grew up has been
shattered. The ideal that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll
be rewarded, you'll do a little better next year than you did last year,
your kids will do better than you. But that idea has been devastated
for millions of Americans. How did this happen? I would argue it
happened for two reasons. No. 1: We lost our economic leadership. Other
nations began to do some things better than we do, and their economies
started growing faster and faster as ours slowed down. No. 2, and this
is why I'm running for President: We elected people to high office who
had the wrong response to the problem. And that's what this election is
all about. Three or four big, simple ideas, even though the problems are
complex.”

So, dear
“comrades,” who said what? More importantly, did any of these seven
supposed subversives mean a single word of it? Most importantly: Where
has all this willful denial gotten us, except a few decades closer to
utter collapse?

As you begin to regret not-studying for this quiz, I’ll leave you with a single sentence from a genuine radical, the venerable Lucy Parsons: “Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”

Below are brief
excerpts from seven different speeches by seven different candidates
over the past 25 or 30 years. All seven candidates were deemed “liberal”
or “progressive” by the corporate media and the malleable voting public.

Without using a
search engine, can any of you dedicated lefty types identify the
candidates or even tell these speeches apart? Could one of these
snippets actually be the words of your latest savior, Bernie Sanders?

Okay, Sandernistas, here we go!

1. “All of us
know what those challenges are today -- a war with no end, a dependence
on oil that threatens our future, schools where too many children aren't
learning, and families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working
as hard as they can. We know the challenges. We've heard them. We've
talked about them for years.”

2. “Dr. King
understood this, many years ago when he said the war in Vietnam was
destroying the people of two nations. We don’t have enough money to
build bridges in this country, yet we blow them up in Iraq. We don’t
have money to build schools in this country, but we have seen schools
and hospitals and other institutions destroyed in Iraq. We cannot take
care of matters here at home, and yet we have leaders who want to go all
around the world and tell people what to do. Let’s come back home.
Let’s take care of things here. Let’s have a country that we can be
proud of, with housing for all and jobs for all and education for all
and healthcare for all. That’s the kind of America that people will
love; the kind of America that will be an example to people all over the
world as a country that you believe in, a country that you want to see
succeed. Are we ready to take the path towards that kind of an America?”

3. “What's the
fundamental challenge of our day? It is to end economic violence. Most
poor people are not lazy. They're not black. They're not brown. They're
mostly white, and female and young. Most poor people are not on welfare.
I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work
every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They
clean the streets. They work every day. They change the beds you slept
in in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work
every day. They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the bodies
of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bedpans.
They clean out their commode. No job is beneath them, and yet when they
get sick, they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day. America,
that is not right. We are a better nation than that. We are a better
nation than that.”

4. “Today, we
stand here and say loudly and clearly that; ‘Enough is enough. This
great nation and its government belong to all of the people, and not to a
handful of billionaires, their Super-PACs and their lobbyists.’
Brothers and sisters: Now is not the time for thinking small. Now is not
the time for the same old – same old establishment politics and stale
inside-the-beltway ideas. Now is the time for millions of working
families to come together, to revitalize American democracy, to end the
collapse of the American middle class and to make certain that our
children and grandchildren are able to enjoy a quality of life that
brings them health, prosperity, security and joy -- and that once again
makes the United States the leader in the world in the fight for
economic and social justice, for environmental sanity and for a world of
peace.

5. “Our
democratic system has been the object of a hostile takeover, engineered
by a confederacy of corruption, careerism, and campaign consulting. And
money has been the lubricant greasing the deal.”

6. “Don’t tell
us unemployment is not a problem, when we see that African American
unemployment is now above 10 percent -- double the rate for whites. It
is unacceptable in the wealthiest nation on earth that we tolerate vast
and growing pockets of poverty -- from the hills of Appalachia to the
streets of Philadelphia. Making life better for the working poor is part
of my vision for a stronger America. We can do better… and we will.
Don’t tell us crumbling and overcrowded schools and underpaid teachers
are the best we can do. We have the means to give all our children a
first-rate education. We can do better… and we will. Don’t tell us we
have to accept racial profiling, hate crimes, or the assault by right
wing judges on our precious civil rights progress. We can do better and
we will.”

7. “For millions
and millions of Americans, the dream with which I grew up has been
shattered. The ideal that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll
be rewarded, you'll do a little better next year than you did last year,
your kids will do better than you. But that idea has been devastated
for millions of Americans. How did this happen? I would argue it
happened for two reasons. No. 1: We lost our economic leadership. Other
nations began to do some things better than we do, and their economies
started growing faster and faster as ours slowed down. No. 2, and this
is why I'm running for President: We elected people to high office who
had the wrong response to the problem. And that's what this election is
all about. Three or four big, simple ideas, even though the problems are
complex.”

So, dear
“comrades,” who said what? More importantly, did any of these seven
supposed subversives mean a single word of it? Most importantly: Where
has all this willful denial gotten us, except a few decades closer to
utter collapse?

As you begin to regret not-studying for this quiz, I’ll leave you with a single sentence from a genuine radical, the venerable Lucy Parsons: “Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”

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